Canadian Dollar Escrow (1.Viewing)

So you've reached a deal to sell a .ca domain in Canadian dollars - who do you use for Escrow?

AFAIK none of the major escrow providers deal in Canadian dollars.

Bonus points if the escrow provider can handle HST.

This is why I work in USD but I will be giving epik escrow a chance this year. They deal in CAD funds.

I find that if you have a basic business website, don't hide who you are (so they can google you, see you appear real, linked in, etc...), then Canadian buyers will often not bother with the fees & hassles of escrow, I send them a legit invoice and they simply e-transfer the funds (in multiple transfers if necessary due to the low limits). Some do want escrow, but its a small fraction of sales, and they're usually ones where there's an agent involved and they insist you use their own escrow anyways (i.e. godaddy).

rlm said:

I find that if you have a basic business website, don't hide who you are (so they can google you, see you appear real, linked in, etc...), then Canadian buyers will often not bother with the fees & hassles of escrow, I send them a legit invoice and they simply e-transfer the funds (in multiple transfers if necessary due to the low limits). Some do want escrow, but its a small fraction of sales, and they're usually ones where there's an agent involved and they insist you use their own escrow anyways (i.e. godaddy).

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I have yet to complete a sale of a domain outside of escrow and have never encountered anyone to turn it down. I even completed one purchase as low as $600 in escrow (had to verify this).

The only slight push back you may get is regarding the fees but generally if they make it an issue I am willing to split the fees. It’s all priced in anyway

Any purchases I’ve made with other domainers were mainly through PayPal or EMT. Any of the larger transactions were all escrow.

I believe escrow.domains can do other currencies than USD too, but I'm not sure if it is part of their system offering or a custom option.

When Escrowhill was still around, I believe I did run a CAD transaction through them.

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions!

I ended up using Epik and it worked very well.

You do need to transfer your domain to their registrar (Hexonet, although I understand they are looking to get their own certification) as they take control of the domain as part of the process.

The transaction was very smooth. It was easy to set up. I set it up in the evening and when I woke up the next morning, everything had been completed and I had received the funds.

There was a 5% charge, which I believe means that the buyer paid by credit card.

They do not have any special way of dealing with HST. I simply added that to the amount. You can send a note to the buyer, and I put in the note that HST was included and sent my HST number.

I was very happy with it and would use again.